Posted using PostyBirb",
"writing": "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[b]Denver, CO, February 3rd[/b]\n\n\n\n“Are you fucking insane?” Thomas and Yating yelled in unison at the armadillo holding the grenade.\n\n“You’re calling me insane?” Gilbert demanded, “after his friend fried my van?”\n\n“I’ve never seen you before,” Donal said.\n\n“Not you, the kangaroo.” He looked around, searching. “I am so done with this shit. Thomas, you’re coming with us, so put that hood over your head or else I’m—”\n\n“Gilbert,” Olavo said, tone severe. “Ease up on the threats.”\n\n“You want him to vanish on us again?” Gilbert snapped.\n\nThomas watched the exchange, his confusion shifting. He knew Gilbert liked his explosives a little too much, but threatening all of them with a grenade? “Will you shut up?” he yelled before Olavo could reply. “What the fuck is wrong with the lot of you? Okay, I get now that teleportation is a big deal. I’m sorry I freaked out when you all freaked out over it, but this? This chasing me around the country because some guy tells you to? We’re all friends,” Thomas glanced at Felix, who was glaring at him. “We’re frat brothers. Isn’t that’s supposed to mean something to you?”\n\n“Don’t,” Olavo ordered Gilbert as he opened his mouth. Once the armadillo closed it, the capybara turned to face Thomas. “We will protect our brothers. That is one of the things Sigma Theta Gamma stands for, Thomas. But we can’t go against your family, not after you betrayed them the way you did. That is why we had to come after you and bring—”\n\n“My family?” Thomas demanded, trying to make sense of this. “It was my father’s idea for me to leave the city. You guys are the ones holding them against their will, am I right? That’s how you knew I was on that bus.”\n\n“Bus?” Olavo asked, sounding confused. “Your father?” He looked at the monkey. \n\nLimbani shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I never saw a bus.”\n\nThomas looked at them, and each one had confusion on their face. Even Felix didn’t seem to understand what Thomas had said. Donal was confused too, but Thomas figured that with him, it was due to the entire situation.\n\n“Okay,” Thomas said, speaking slowly to keep his temper under control and give himself time to think. “Here’s my side of what happened. After I ran from the frat, I went to my parents. They figured it was safer for me to head to Bozeman until they worked out what happened, but then those guys showed up at the bus stop near Fargo, and you guys have been showing up at the worse time after that. And then, Madoc is spouting something about some Raphael guy who—where’s Madoc?” Thomas asked, the other rat’s absence only now registering. “Why isn’t it him who’s spouting nonsense about betrayal, instead of you, Olavo?”\n\nThe silence that followed quickly turn uncomfortable. For them, Thomas noticed, unsure if he should be amused about how they seem to be the ones caught with their pants down.\n\nWrong analogy, Thomas. Pants down is kind of the norm for them.\n\n“Don’t you all speak up at once.”\n\n“He’s been kidnapped,” Gilbert snapped, stepping forward and keeping the squirrel before him. “That’s why we’re trying to get you.” He froze. “I mean now, this time, not—” he looked uncomfortable, and looked to the others for help. Olavo raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.\n\nGilbert sighed. “We need your help.”\n\n“My help?” Thomas asked in disbelief. This was a trick. It had to be. Some sick appeal to his fraternity solidarity as a way to force his hand, after they were the ones to break that bond.\n\nOnly they all looked like they were guilty of something, and Thomas didn’t think they understood it was that they were in the wrong when it came to forcing him to flee Minneapolis or hunting him down.\n\nFuck.\n\n“You are going to need to have one hell of an explanation for this and for why I should even think about helping the lot of you.” He raised a hand as Olavo opened his mouth. “Over coffee. The good stuff. You’re paying, oh and tea too.”\n\n“I know the place!” Limbani exclaimed.\n\n* * * * *\n\n[b]Denver, CO, February 3rd[/b]\n\n\n\nThe place Limbani ‘knew’ was a small coffee shop that didn’t stand out from any of the dilapidated stores on the street. How the monkey knew this place, Thomas had no idea. It couldn’t be part of a chain, and he didn’t think his frat brothers had ever set foot in a coffee place where the coffees didn’t start at ten bucks. He certainly had never seen any of them frequenting the shops on the university grounds.\n\nFelix was complaining the moment Limbani said it was only two blocks away. Thomas didn’t care about the otter’s unhappiness. Two blocks meant no need to go in Gilbert’s van, so no chances this was a trick to catch him.\n\nThe shop only had half of its twenty or so tables occupied, and by men and woman dressed better than Thomas and Donal were only in that what they wore had been washed in the last two weeks, probably last week even. So a bunch of guys in thousand dollar overcoats attracted a lot of stares.\n\nEven if they had entered one at a time, it would have been impossible not to make this a memorable moment for the customers.\n\nGilbert led Donal to the back, sitting him at the larger table there, his back to the wall. Thomas sat next to the squirrel before anyone else took that spot. Gilbert sat on the other side. Thomas didn’t care. Now, if they tried anything, he could take himself and Donal to Montana with a thought.\n\nHe’d have to hope he’d have enough strength to tell Donal to fuck him, and that the squirrel could do it. Living on the street had left Thomas with little time to inquire about his friend’s sexuality.\n\nDonal took off his gloves as Felix and Limbani sat facing them.\n\n“Couldn’t you have seen us at something more…” Felix seemed to struggle for the word. “Upscale?”\n\nThe monkey opened his mouth, then closed it and fixed the otter with a glare. “You know what? I’m done explaining how this works.” He stood and joined the capybara at the counter.\n\nFelix rolled his eyes, then narrowed them, at what Donal held. “What’s that, some fidget-toy?”\n\nThe squirrel was fiddling with his assemblage of small items. Thomas hadn’t asked about that either, but he’d watched Donal add a bent penny he’d found poking out of a broken brick. He didn’t think it was a fidget-toy. Donal worked on it on and off every day, and not only when he was in stressful situation.\n\nThe squirrel shrugged. “Just something I work on to keep busy.”\n\n“Fidget-toy,” the otter said with a sneer.\n\n“You know,” the squirrel said, without looking up form making a notch with a claw in what seemed to be the wooden core in which everything else was embedded. “You’re not what I expected as Thomas’s friends from university.”\n\n“And just what did you think his friends would be like?” Gilbert asked.\n\n“Not totting grenades, for one thing,” Donal answered in far too calm a tone.\n\n“You didn’t tell him about me?” the armadillo asked Thomas, sounding miffed.\n\n“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to go in detail about each of the guys who are hunting me down for no valid reason?” Thomas demanded, annoyed at his friend’s entitlement. “And if I had felt the need to give him detail. I doubt your collection would have come up. Have you had that grenade in your truck the entire time I’ve known you?”\n\n “Are you kidding me?” Gilbert asked and patted the overcoat’s pocket. “I don’t leave my lucky grenade in the truck. And if I had, there would be nothing left of it after what your friend did to my van.”\n\nThomas stared and tried to determine if the armadillo was serious. Who in their right minds considered a grenade lucky?\n\nOlavo and Limbani returned with trays holding mugs. Ceramic mugs instead of the paper cups Thomas had gotten used to over the last weeks. The capybara placed a black one before Thomas as he sat, and he breathed it in before enjoying a sip.\n\nMirabel’s coffees were the highlight of his week, but those were only good in comparison to the swill he had to contend with the rest of the time. This…this was heaven in his hands.\n\nHe lowered the cup and glanced at Donal, who was drinking his tea, eyes closed, before looking at the others. “Alright, start at the beginning. Don’t even think of making that joke,” he told the monkey, who was opening his muzzle, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “And make the start what happened to Madoc, since that’s what you claim you need my help with.”\n\nOlavo finished mixing the sugar in his coffee. “We stayed at your grandfather’s place for almost two full days, since Limbani saw us there. He didn’t see you there, but I figured it’s where you were headed when you left with the kangaroo—”\n\n“After he fried my van,” Gilbert interjected, glaring at Thomas across Donal and over his mug.\n\n“—why else would Limbani see us there.”\n\n“And why do we keep going where Lim ‘sees’ up being?” Felix demanded, making the air quotes. “It got Gilbert’s van blown up, then we had to waste time at that old man’s place who wouldn’t even put out to make out time—”\n\n“You hit on my grandfather?” Thomas asked in disbelief, then looked at Limbani who wore his patented innocent smirk. “Never mind. I don’t know why I’m even surprised.”\n\n“Hey,” Gilbert protested, “some of us showed restraint.”\n\nOlavo smirked. “For my part, it was that I watched him shoot three guys down, so I knew better than to bother.” His smile turned mildly lecherous. “But I have to say that for a man his age, your mother’s father has kept in very nice shape.”\n\nThomas stared as the capybara licked his lips, then sipped his coffee. Then what was said registered.\n\n“He’s my father’s dad,” Thomas corrected, and the confusion that was shot his way kept his outrage at what the capybara had to be imagining doing to Magnus from raising again.\n\n“We left,” Limbani said, “when we saw that news story. Felix recognized the pickup and a few calls got us the location.”\n\n“He wasn’t seeing you show up,” Felix said, “so that’s where we headed.”\n\n“We agreed Lim wasn’t going to see anything,” Yating said. “So he wouldn’t send us on another wild goose chase. We figured you or the kangaroo would show up to take it out of impound at some point.”\n\n“I could have told you they weren’t going to be there,” Limbani said, then primly drank.\n\nThe red panda shrugged. “While we were waiting for you there, this van showed up,” he glared at the monkey, “guys grabbed Madoc and they drove off.”\n\n“You didn’t want me to see,” Limbani said, still too primly for his own good, Thomas thought.\n\n“What, some guys grabbed Madoc?” Thomas asked, shifting the focus. “Our Madoc? Lifts close to three hundred pounds, Madoc?”\n\n“The guys who grabbed him weren’t just bigger than he is,” Gilbert said, “but bigger than everyone he’s ever trained.”\n\nThomas had trouble wrapping his mind around how big that made them. Madoc had a knack for training guys. There had been a joke, when Madoc started training Thomas, about making him worthy of a mister universe contest, and while he didn’t know if any of the other guys the rat trained had taken part, they definitely could.\n\nHe looked at Limbani, seeing how he could see stuff, he’d have more information.\n\nThe monkey sighed in annoyance. “You know how this works, Thomas.”\n\n“No, I don’t,” he replied flatly.\n\n“I’ve had to explain this to you at least a dozen time,” Limbani said curtly. “I am beginning to think you are doing this because you know how aggravating I find it.”\n\nThomas looked at the others, who didn’t seem surprised at the outburst. Had he somehow switched place with some other universe version who actually knew what was going on?\n\n“Limbani, until I teleported away from the frat, I didn’t know magic existed. The only thing I understand now is how you managed to constantly drag me to those public spots to fuck and we never got caught. But no, you never explained this to me.”\n\nThe confusion was back, which confused Thomas too.\n\n“What can I do?” Olavo asked.\n\nThomas figured he meant magically, but he’d never seen him do anything… well other than— “beat anyone at strip poker, and dress better than Felix?”\n\nFelix was the only one not snickering, glaring at the rat.\n\n“I’m serious,” the capybara said, once he’d regained control. “We all gave you a demonstration before the holidays.”\n\n“Unless you’re referring to all the sex we had, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”\n\n“That kind of counts,” Limbani said.\n\nOlavo searched Thomas’s face. “You’re serious? You don’t remember anything about us showing you what our powers are?”\n\nThomas shook his head. “I know Yating’s, since he walked through the truck and I punched through him. And I worked out, Limbani’s from all the bitching you guys did about his visions.”\n\nOlavo closed his eyes and pressed his index finger to his lips like he often did when he thought. “Alright. If nothing else, this explains why you’re running so hard. That kangaroo messed with your memories.”\n\n“Don’t you go accusing Grant of anything,” Thomas warned, glaring. “He saved my life. If anyone’s had their heads thrown in a blender, it’s the lot of you. But this isn’t about me. Limbani, how come you didn’t see Madoc’s kidnapping coming?”\n\nThe monkey sighed. “Fine. On account you don’t remember, I’ll explain it, again. I have to make a conscious decision as to when I’ll see. I’m not a precognitive in the sense that events come to me. I have to go looking, and I don’t lock on something or someone else. I pick the time and I see what is happening around the me of that time. I wasn’t looking in part because these guys were threatening to use dildos on me anytime I even looked like I wasn’t ‘in the moment’. I’ll take cocks in my mouth and ass any minute of the day as a distraction, but toys? No, thank you. The other reason is that once I’ve looked, I’m locked out of anything between now and then.”\n\nThomas did his best to process the information. “But then, why did you look for me and not Madoc?”\n\n“You still aren’t listening,” Limbani mumbled, then. “I see what happens where I am at that time. I couldn’t search for Madoc. What I did was looked ever so further ahead until I saw something pointing me in a direction I would have acted on.”\n\n“And you saw me in that alley,” Thomas said. “You saw me running, which is why you had Olavo and Gilbert outside that lot.” He thought over what had happened. “Why didn’t you see me knock you on your ass?”\n\nLimbani smirked. “Who says I didn’t, and just let you have the morale boost?”\n\nThomas ignored the humor, going over what the monkey had said. “You’d already looked beyond the fight.” He looked around. “To some point when we’re in here. That’s how you knew about it. So you couldn’t see what I’d do during the fight. You were locked out of it. No, you saw us outside, that’s how you could lead us here.”\n\nLimbani beamed. “I know you were a smart ass on top of a really fuckable one.”\n\nThomas rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. What I don’t get is why you’ve bothered. You must have looked a bit ahead and you know there’s no way I’m agreeing to any of this. I’ve had to live on the streets because of you guys, so why don’t you go ask that Raphael Madoc’s so fond of to rescue him?”\n\nThe others turned to the monkey, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Twelve hours from now I’m sucking him off in the back of Gilbert’s van. I’m locked out of the how we get to that point.”\n\n“Limbani,” Olavo said, exasperated, “we’re here because you saw us here. I’m happy your vision had a positive result this time, but get off it, okay? We need to convince Thomas. Unless you want you overconfidence in your vision cause that vision to be wrong, you need to help.”\n\nThat knocked a degree of seriousness into the monkey, Thomas thought, except that as he had that thought, Limbani flashed him the very not innocent ‘I’m going to fuck you smile’. “You’re going to come because you miss all the sex.”\n\nThomas snorted, thinking of where a good chunk of the money he’d made had ended up going after he discovered a bathhouse was a rather affordable place to stay when it got bitterly cold.\n\n“Grant introduced me to bathhouses, so that’s a better luck next time.” He saw the worry on their face and again their reaction confused him. “Seriously, guys. How can you think I’d want to help? For all I know, you’ve tortured my dad to get him to tell you what bus I was on. Fuck, why didn’t you start all this with ‘if you don’t come with us, your parents get it’?”\n\n“Look,” Yating said, while the others reeled from Thomas’ accusation. “I understand that asking that you do this because Mad’s your frat brother isn’t going to happen with the way your memories have—”\n\n“Your memories,” Thomas snapped. “You guys are the ones with the scrambled ones.”\n\n“Fine,” Yating relented. “But don’t you see that even if you don’t want to help Madoc because of what you believe he did, coming with us gets you answers. Let’s say that we are the ones whose memories have been altered, so we’d chase you down. Don’t you want to know why Raphael would go to that extreme?”\n\nThomas rubbed his temple. “Who is this Raphael?”\n\n“He’s your—” Olavo closed his mouth and exchange looks with the others. When he spoke again, it was cautiously. “He’s Madoc’s elder.”\n\n“And what does an elder do, exactly?” Thomas asked, feeling like it was a non-answer.\n\nFelix chimed in. “He controls the Lewiston family. He makes all the big decisions regarding their estates and the men who bare is name.”\n\nThomas took a sip of his, now only warm, coffee. “Okay. It would be nice to know why all this happened. The only problem I see is that whoever fucked with your minds can do the same with me when we get there.”\n\n“Then, you can leave,” Olavo said, raising a hand to silence Yating. “It’s not like we can stop you.”\n\nThomas looked at the large bay window. Olavo meant once they had rescued Madoc, but it was tempting to go now. Will himself to the other side of the street, where he could just make out an alley. He placed a hand on Donal’s thigh. Could he do this with someone else and stay conscious? Limbani said he’d looked twelve hours ahead. That gave him plenty of time to regain his strength and disappear deeper into the city.\n\nHe looked at the men seated around the table and tried to convince himself the worry on their face was an act. Limbani’s attempt at a superior smirk didn’t look that good and his fear leaked through it. Felix was the only one looking more pissed than worried. Probably at Thomas, by the way he was glaring. As for why…?\n\nIt had to be a trap. Had to. Madoc was in a hotel room somewhere, having the fuck of his life, or at least the hour, and…\n\nWhat if Thomas was wrong?\n\nWhat if Madoc was really in trouble and Thomas refused to help? These guys had been his friends for half a year, his frat brothers. If their memories had been altered so they’d hunt him down, didn’t it make them as much victims as he was?\n\nWhat did it say about Thomas if he turned away from his frat brothers when they needed his help?\n\n“Let’s say, for the sake of argument,” he added as the monkey smirked. “That I’m willing to help. How exactly do you expect me to do that? I’m not some action hero. I don’t have training in my power, much less in how to pull of a rescue. You guys are the ones with the money, why aren’t you paying experts to do this?”\n\nThe look that passed among them was one of such discomfort Thomas had trouble believing there was something money couldn’t buy.\n\n“Okay, why can’t you pay for his rescue?”\n\n“Because it would make the situation worse,” Olavo answered. “Probably.”\n\n“The city they took Madoc to is controlled by a family no one wants to piss off,” Gilbert said. “If it had been anywhere else, one of us would have asked for support from our family, but…” he shook his head. “Things are too risky with them.”\n\n“You can teleport,” Yating said. “You can get to him, and get him out, then we run like crazy and deny ever being there if someone asks.”\n\n“Wait a minute.” Thomas cut him off. “Are you telling me those people, everyone is scared of, are who took Madoc?”\n\n“Oh, Sweet Cum, I hope they aren’t involved,” Felix said, looking scared.\n\n“They aren’t,” Limbani said. “It they were who had taken him, it would have been men in body armor instead of overmuscled thugs in a van. There was one tiger with them, but being a tiger doesn’t make you an Orr.”\n\nThey shushed him with such strength Thomas wondered if those people might have heard. “So, those Orrs are who you’re all terrified of. And you want me to risk my tail going up against them?”\n\n“Not against,” Gilbert said, “just operate in their city.” \n\n“What’s the city?” he asked reflexively. Considering their reaction, Thomas couldn’t think of one thing they could say that would make him agree to this.\n\n“San Francisco,” Olavo said, and Thomas stared at the capybara as he put his phone on the table. Okay, so there might be one thing they could say.\n\nOn the phone was the website for a gym. The logo was a golden shield with the silhouette of a man with his arm at his side. A flexing pose Thomas didn’t remember the name of, but had seen Madoc do, and had had to attempt a time or two.\n\n‘Hot muscle’ was the name of the gym.\n\n“Are you guy sure they kidnapped Madoc? Jacked up guys pulling him in a truck to take him to a place where more jacked up guys will be present sounds like something Madoc might pull so he wouldn’t have to do what Limbani says anymore.”\n\n“If Madoc had arranged this,” Gilbert said. “He wouldn’t have gone to San Francisco. Not after what took place between their families.”\n\n“Not the time for gossip,” Olavo said as Felix started talking. “But yes, the Lewistons aren’t welcome there.”\n\n“But look at it on the bright side,” Felix said, grinning. “No one knows you’re a Lewiston, so even if they do catch you, what’s the worse they’ll do?”\n\nThomas ignored the way the others winced. “I am not a Lewiston.” That reaction couldn’t bode well for anything happening if he was caught. Fuck, why did his backup plan have to be in that city?\n\n“You should go,” Donal said, and Thomas looked at him suspiciously. Part of him wondered why he wasn’t freaking out at half of what he’d listen to them say. “Look,” he continued. “You should help them, pay it forward, I mean, and it’s San Francisco. Who wouldn’t want to go there?”\n\nSo Donal remembered that talk; on the night they met. Thomas was surprised. What the squirrel made him realize he’d forgotten among the fear induced by the other’s reactions was that so long as he was in the city, he could get in touch with the person Grant wanted him to go to for help. And with his power, trap or no trap, there was nothing they could do to keep him from vanishing.\n\nDoing his best to sound reluctant, Thomas said. “Alright, I’m in.”\n\n“Told you,” Limbani said, smiling proudly.",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "
Denver, CO, February 3rd
“Are you fucking insane?” Thomas and Yating yelled in unison at the armadillo holding the grenade.
“You’re calling me insane?” Gilbert demanded, “after his friend fried my van?”
“I’ve never seen you before,” Donal said.
“Not you, the kangaroo.” He looked around, searching. “I am so done with this shit. Thomas, you’re coming with us, so put that hood over your head or else I’m—”
“Gilbert,” Olavo said, tone severe. “Ease up on the threats.”
“You want him to vanish on us again?” Gilbert snapped.
Thomas watched the exchange, his confusion shifting. He knew Gilbert liked his explosives a little too much, but threatening all of them with a grenade? “Will you shut up?” he yelled before Olavo could reply. “What the fuck is wrong with the lot of you? Okay, I get now that teleportation is a big deal. I’m sorry I freaked out when you all freaked out over it, but this? This chasing me around the country because some guy tells you to? We’re all friends,” Thomas glanced at Felix, who was glaring at him. “We’re frat brothers. Isn’t that’s supposed to mean something to you?”
“Don’t,” Olavo ordered Gilbert as he opened his mouth. Once the armadillo closed it, the capybara turned to face Thomas. “We will protect our brothers. That is one of the things Sigma Theta Gamma stands for, Thomas. But we can’t go against your family, not after you betrayed them the way you did. That is why we had to come after you and bring—”
“My family?” Thomas demanded, trying to make sense of this. “It was my father’s idea for me to leave the city. You guys are the ones holding them against their will, am I right? That’s how you knew I was on that bus.”
“Bus?” Olavo asked, sounding confused. “Your father?” He looked at the monkey.
Limbani shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I never saw a bus.”
Thomas looked at them, and each one had confusion on their face. Even Felix didn’t seem to understand what Thomas had said. Donal was confused too, but Thomas figured that with him, it was due to the entire situation.
“Okay,” Thomas said, speaking slowly to keep his temper under control and give himself time to think. “Here’s my side of what happened. After I ran from the frat, I went to my parents. They figured it was safer for me to head to Bozeman until they worked out what happened, but then those guys showed up at the bus stop near Fargo, and you guys have been showing up at the worse time after that. And then, Madoc is spouting something about some Raphael guy who—where’s Madoc?” Thomas asked, the other rat’s absence only now registering. “Why isn’t it him who’s spouting nonsense about betrayal, instead of you, Olavo?”
The silence that followed quickly turn uncomfortable. For them, Thomas noticed, unsure if he should be amused about how they seem to be the ones caught with their pants down.
Wrong analogy, Thomas. Pants down is kind of the norm for them.
“Don’t you all speak up at once.”
“He’s been kidnapped,” Gilbert snapped, stepping forward and keeping the squirrel before him. “That’s why we’re trying to get you.” He froze. “I mean now, this time, not—” he looked uncomfortable, and looked to the others for help. Olavo raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.
Gilbert sighed. “We need your help.”
“My help?” Thomas asked in disbelief. This was a trick. It had to be. Some sick appeal to his fraternity solidarity as a way to force his hand, after they were the ones to break that bond.
Only they all looked like they were guilty of something, and Thomas didn’t think they understood it was that they were in the wrong when it came to forcing him to flee Minneapolis or hunting him down.
Fuck.
“You are going to need to have one hell of an explanation for this and for why I should even think about helping the lot of you.” He raised a hand as Olavo opened his mouth. “Over coffee. The good stuff. You’re paying, oh and tea too.”
“I know the place!” Limbani exclaimed.
* * * * *
Denver, CO, February 3rd
The place Limbani ‘knew’ was a small coffee shop that didn’t stand out from any of the dilapidated stores on the street. How the monkey knew this place, Thomas had no idea. It couldn’t be part of a chain, and he didn’t think his frat brothers had ever set foot in a coffee place where the coffees didn’t start at ten bucks. He certainly had never seen any of them frequenting the shops on the university grounds.
Felix was complaining the moment Limbani said it was only two blocks away. Thomas didn’t care about the otter’s unhappiness. Two blocks meant no need to go in Gilbert’s van, so no chances this was a trick to catch him.
The shop only had half of its twenty or so tables occupied, and by men and woman dressed better than Thomas and Donal were only in that what they wore had been washed in the last two weeks, probably last week even. So a bunch of guys in thousand dollar overcoats attracted a lot of stares.
Even if they had entered one at a time, it would have been impossible not to make this a memorable moment for the customers.
Gilbert led Donal to the back, sitting him at the larger table there, his back to the wall. Thomas sat next to the squirrel before anyone else took that spot. Gilbert sat on the other side. Thomas didn’t care. Now, if they tried anything, he could take himself and Donal to Montana with a thought.
He’d have to hope he’d have enough strength to tell Donal to fuck him, and that the squirrel could do it. Living on the street had left Thomas with little time to inquire about his friend’s sexuality.
Donal took off his gloves as Felix and Limbani sat facing them.
“Couldn’t you have seen us at something more…” Felix seemed to struggle for the word. “Upscale?”
The monkey opened his mouth, then closed it and fixed the otter with a glare. “You know what? I’m done explaining how this works.” He stood and joined the capybara at the counter.
Felix rolled his eyes, then narrowed them, at what Donal held. “What’s that, some fidget-toy?”
The squirrel was fiddling with his assemblage of small items. Thomas hadn’t asked about that either, but he’d watched Donal add a bent penny he’d found poking out of a broken brick. He didn’t think it was a fidget-toy. Donal worked on it on and off every day, and not only when he was in stressful situation.
The squirrel shrugged. “Just something I work on to keep busy.”
“Fidget-toy,” the otter said with a sneer.
“You know,” the squirrel said, without looking up form making a notch with a claw in what seemed to be the wooden core in which everything else was embedded. “You’re not what I expected as Thomas’s friends from university.”
“And just what did you think his friends would be like?” Gilbert asked.
“Not totting grenades, for one thing,” Donal answered in far too calm a tone.
“You didn’t tell him about me?” the armadillo asked Thomas, sounding miffed.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to go in detail about each of the guys who are hunting me down for no valid reason?” Thomas demanded, annoyed at his friend’s entitlement. “And if I had felt the need to give him detail. I doubt your collection would have come up. Have you had that grenade in your truck the entire time I’ve known you?”
“Are you kidding me?” Gilbert asked and patted the overcoat’s pocket. “I don’t leave my lucky grenade in the truck. And if I had, there would be nothing left of it after what your friend did to my van.”
Thomas stared and tried to determine if the armadillo was serious. Who in their right minds considered a grenade lucky?
Olavo and Limbani returned with trays holding mugs. Ceramic mugs instead of the paper cups Thomas had gotten used to over the last weeks. The capybara placed a black one before Thomas as he sat, and he breathed it in before enjoying a sip.
Mirabel’s coffees were the highlight of his week, but those were only good in comparison to the swill he had to contend with the rest of the time. This…this was heaven in his hands.
He lowered the cup and glanced at Donal, who was drinking his tea, eyes closed, before looking at the others. “Alright, start at the beginning. Don’t even think of making that joke,” he told the monkey, who was opening his muzzle, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “And make the start what happened to Madoc, since that’s what you claim you need my help with.”
Olavo finished mixing the sugar in his coffee. “We stayed at your grandfather’s place for almost two full days, since Limbani saw us there. He didn’t see you there, but I figured it’s where you were headed when you left with the kangaroo—”
“After he fried my van,” Gilbert interjected, glaring at Thomas across Donal and over his mug.
“—why else would Limbani see us there.”
“And why do we keep going where Lim ‘sees’ up being?” Felix demanded, making the air quotes. “It got Gilbert’s van blown up, then we had to waste time at that old man’s place who wouldn’t even put out to make out time—”
“You hit on my grandfather?” Thomas asked in disbelief, then looked at Limbani who wore his patented innocent smirk. “Never mind. I don’t know why I’m even surprised.”
“Hey,” Gilbert protested, “some of us showed restraint.”
Olavo smirked. “For my part, it was that I watched him shoot three guys down, so I knew better than to bother.” His smile turned mildly lecherous. “But I have to say that for a man his age, your mother’s father has kept in very nice shape.”
Thomas stared as the capybara licked his lips, then sipped his coffee. Then what was said registered.
“He’s my father’s dad,” Thomas corrected, and the confusion that was shot his way kept his outrage at what the capybara had to be imagining doing to Magnus from raising again.
“We left,” Limbani said, “when we saw that news story. Felix recognized the pickup and a few calls got us the location.”
“He wasn’t seeing you show up,” Felix said, “so that’s where we headed.”
“We agreed Lim wasn’t going to see anything,” Yating said. “So he wouldn’t send us on another wild goose chase. We figured you or the kangaroo would show up to take it out of impound at some point.”
“I could have told you they weren’t going to be there,” Limbani said, then primly drank.
The red panda shrugged. “While we were waiting for you there, this van showed up,” he glared at the monkey, “guys grabbed Madoc and they drove off.”
“You didn’t want me to see,” Limbani said, still too primly for his own good, Thomas thought.
“What, some guys grabbed Madoc?” Thomas asked, shifting the focus. “Our Madoc? Lifts close to three hundred pounds, Madoc?”
“The guys who grabbed him weren’t just bigger than he is,” Gilbert said, “but bigger than everyone he’s ever trained.”
Thomas had trouble wrapping his mind around how big that made them. Madoc had a knack for training guys. There had been a joke, when Madoc started training Thomas, about making him worthy of a mister universe contest, and while he didn’t know if any of the other guys the rat trained had taken part, they definitely could.
He looked at Limbani, seeing how he could see stuff, he’d have more information.
The monkey sighed in annoyance. “You know how this works, Thomas.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied flatly.
“I’ve had to explain this to you at least a dozen time,” Limbani said curtly. “I am beginning to think you are doing this because you know how aggravating I find it.”
Thomas looked at the others, who didn’t seem surprised at the outburst. Had he somehow switched place with some other universe version who actually knew what was going on?
“Limbani, until I teleported away from the frat, I didn’t know magic existed. The only thing I understand now is how you managed to constantly drag me to those public spots to fuck and we never got caught. But no, you never explained this to me.”
The confusion was back, which confused Thomas too.
“What can I do?” Olavo asked.
Thomas figured he meant magically, but he’d never seen him do anything… well other than— “beat anyone at strip poker, and dress better than Felix?”
Felix was the only one not snickering, glaring at the rat.
“I’m serious,” the capybara said, once he’d regained control. “We all gave you a demonstration before the holidays.”
“Unless you’re referring to all the sex we had, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That kind of counts,” Limbani said.
Olavo searched Thomas’s face. “You’re serious? You don’t remember anything about us showing you what our powers are?”
Thomas shook his head. “I know Yating’s, since he walked through the truck and I punched through him. And I worked out, Limbani’s from all the bitching you guys did about his visions.”
Olavo closed his eyes and pressed his index finger to his lips like he often did when he thought. “Alright. If nothing else, this explains why you’re running so hard. That kangaroo messed with your memories.”
“Don’t you go accusing Grant of anything,” Thomas warned, glaring. “He saved my life. If anyone’s had their heads thrown in a blender, it’s the lot of you. But this isn’t about me. Limbani, how come you didn’t see Madoc’s kidnapping coming?”
The monkey sighed. “Fine. On account you don’t remember, I’ll explain it, again. I have to make a conscious decision as to when I’ll see. I’m not a precognitive in the sense that events come to me. I have to go looking, and I don’t lock on something or someone else. I pick the time and I see what is happening around the me of that time. I wasn’t looking in part because these guys were threatening to use dildos on me anytime I even looked like I wasn’t ‘in the moment’. I’ll take cocks in my mouth and ass any minute of the day as a distraction, but toys? No, thank you. The other reason is that once I’ve looked, I’m locked out of anything between now and then.”
Thomas did his best to process the information. “But then, why did you look for me and not Madoc?”
“You still aren’t listening,” Limbani mumbled, then. “I see what happens where I am at that time. I couldn’t search for Madoc. What I did was looked ever so further ahead until I saw something pointing me in a direction I would have acted on.”
“And you saw me in that alley,” Thomas said. “You saw me running, which is why you had Olavo and Gilbert outside that lot.” He thought over what had happened. “Why didn’t you see me knock you on your ass?”
Limbani smirked. “Who says I didn’t, and just let you have the morale boost?”
Thomas ignored the humor, going over what the monkey had said. “You’d already looked beyond the fight.” He looked around. “To some point when we’re in here. That’s how you knew about it. So you couldn’t see what I’d do during the fight. You were locked out of it. No, you saw us outside, that’s how you could lead us here.”
Limbani beamed. “I know you were a smart ass on top of a really fuckable one.”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. What I don’t get is why you’ve bothered. You must have looked a bit ahead and you know there’s no way I’m agreeing to any of this. I’ve had to live on the streets because of you guys, so why don’t you go ask that Raphael Madoc’s so fond of to rescue him?”
The others turned to the monkey, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Twelve hours from now I’m sucking him off in the back of Gilbert’s van. I’m locked out of the how we get to that point.”
“Limbani,” Olavo said, exasperated, “we’re here because you saw us here. I’m happy your vision had a positive result this time, but get off it, okay? We need to convince Thomas. Unless you want you overconfidence in your vision cause that vision to be wrong, you need to help.”
That knocked a degree of seriousness into the monkey, Thomas thought, except that as he had that thought, Limbani flashed him the very not innocent ‘I’m going to fuck you smile’. “You’re going to come because you miss all the sex.”
Thomas snorted, thinking of where a good chunk of the money he’d made had ended up going after he discovered a bathhouse was a rather affordable place to stay when it got bitterly cold.
“Grant introduced me to bathhouses, so that’s a better luck next time.” He saw the worry on their face and again their reaction confused him. “Seriously, guys. How can you think I’d want to help? For all I know, you’ve tortured my dad to get him to tell you what bus I was on. Fuck, why didn’t you start all this with ‘if you don’t come with us, your parents get it’?”
“Look,” Yating said, while the others reeled from Thomas’ accusation. “I understand that asking that you do this because Mad’s your frat brother isn’t going to happen with the way your memories have—”
“Your memories,” Thomas snapped. “You guys are the ones with the scrambled ones.”
“Fine,” Yating relented. “But don’t you see that even if you don’t want to help Madoc because of what you believe he did, coming with us gets you answers. Let’s say that we are the ones whose memories have been altered, so we’d chase you down. Don’t you want to know why Raphael would go to that extreme?”
Thomas rubbed his temple. “Who is this Raphael?”
“He’s your—” Olavo closed his mouth and exchange looks with the others. When he spoke again, it was cautiously. “He’s Madoc’s elder.”
“And what does an elder do, exactly?” Thomas asked, feeling like it was a non-answer.
Felix chimed in. “He controls the Lewiston family. He makes all the big decisions regarding their estates and the men who bare is name.”
Thomas took a sip of his, now only warm, coffee. “Okay. It would be nice to know why all this happened. The only problem I see is that whoever fucked with your minds can do the same with me when we get there.”
“Then, you can leave,” Olavo said, raising a hand to silence Yating. “It’s not like we can stop you.”
Thomas looked at the large bay window. Olavo meant once they had rescued Madoc, but it was tempting to go now. Will himself to the other side of the street, where he could just make out an alley. He placed a hand on Donal’s thigh. Could he do this with someone else and stay conscious? Limbani said he’d looked twelve hours ahead. That gave him plenty of time to regain his strength and disappear deeper into the city.
He looked at the men seated around the table and tried to convince himself the worry on their face was an act. Limbani’s attempt at a superior smirk didn’t look that good and his fear leaked through it. Felix was the only one looking more pissed than worried. Probably at Thomas, by the way he was glaring. As for why…?
It had to be a trap. Had to. Madoc was in a hotel room somewhere, having the fuck of his life, or at least the hour, and…
What if Thomas was wrong?
What if Madoc was really in trouble and Thomas refused to help? These guys had been his friends for half a year, his frat brothers. If their memories had been altered so they’d hunt him down, didn’t it make them as much victims as he was?
What did it say about Thomas if he turned away from his frat brothers when they needed his help?
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument,” he added as the monkey smirked. “That I’m willing to help. How exactly do you expect me to do that? I’m not some action hero. I don’t have training in my power, much less in how to pull of a rescue. You guys are the ones with the money, why aren’t you paying experts to do this?”
The look that passed among them was one of such discomfort Thomas had trouble believing there was something money couldn’t buy.
“Okay, why can’t you pay for his rescue?”
“Because it would make the situation worse,” Olavo answered. “Probably.”
“The city they took Madoc to is controlled by a family no one wants to piss off,” Gilbert said. “If it had been anywhere else, one of us would have asked for support from our family, but…” he shook his head. “Things are too risky with them.”
“You can teleport,” Yating said. “You can get to him, and get him out, then we run like crazy and deny ever being there if someone asks.”
“Wait a minute.” Thomas cut him off. “Are you telling me those people, everyone is scared of, are who took Madoc?”
“Oh, Sweet Cum, I hope they aren’t involved,” Felix said, looking scared.
“They aren’t,” Limbani said. “It they were who had taken him, it would have been men in body armor instead of overmuscled thugs in a van. There was one tiger with them, but being a tiger doesn’t make you an Orr.”
They shushed him with such strength Thomas wondered if those people might have heard. “So, those Orrs are who you’re all terrified of. And you want me to risk my tail going up against them?”
“Not against,” Gilbert said, “just operate in their city.”
“What’s the city?” he asked reflexively. Considering their reaction, Thomas couldn’t think of one thing they could say that would make him agree to this.
“San Francisco,” Olavo said, and Thomas stared at the capybara as he put his phone on the table. Okay, so there might be one thing they could say.
On the phone was the website for a gym. The logo was a golden shield with the silhouette of a man with his arm at his side. A flexing pose Thomas didn’t remember the name of, but had seen Madoc do, and had had to attempt a time or two.
‘Hot muscle’ was the name of the gym.
“Are you guy sure they kidnapped Madoc? Jacked up guys pulling him in a truck to take him to a place where more jacked up guys will be present sounds like something Madoc might pull so he wouldn’t have to do what Limbani says anymore.”
“If Madoc had arranged this,” Gilbert said. “He wouldn’t have gone to San Francisco. Not after what took place between their families.”
“Not the time for gossip,” Olavo said as Felix started talking. “But yes, the Lewistons aren’t welcome there.”
“But look at it on the bright side,” Felix said, grinning. “No one knows you’re a Lewiston, so even if they do catch you, what’s the worse they’ll do?”
Thomas ignored the way the others winced. “I am not a Lewiston.” That reaction couldn’t bode well for anything happening if he was caught. Fuck, why did his backup plan have to be in that city?
“You should go,” Donal said, and Thomas looked at him suspiciously. Part of him wondered why he wasn’t freaking out at half of what he’d listen to them say. “Look,” he continued. “You should help them, pay it forward, I mean, and it’s San Francisco. Who wouldn’t want to go there?”
So Donal remembered that talk; on the night they met. Thomas was surprised. What the squirrel made him realize he’d forgotten among the fear induced by the other’s reactions was that so long as he was in the city, he could get in touch with the person Grant wanted him to go to for help. And with his power, trap or no trap, there was nothing they could do to keep him from vanishing.
Doing his best to sound reluctant, Thomas said. “Alright, I’m in.”
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